Carolyn Washburn has been hired as editor and vice president at The Cincinnati Enquirer, the newspaper announced today. A Greater Cincinnati native, Washburn currently is editor at The Des Moines Register in Iowa.

Washburn, 48, previously worked with Enquirer Publisher Margaret Buchanan while both were at The Idaho Statesman. Buchanan will be Washburn's new boss and made the selection. Washburn begins her new job Jan. 10.

For all the rhetoric about the United States' right to freedom of the press, the best reporting on the governmental secrets revealed by WikiLeaks, and the deeper issues they raise, has been done by media outlets in other nations. And the best and most in-depth interview with Julian Assange has been done by a British journalist for Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite news channel.

David Frost, who famously interviewed President Nixon a few years after his resignation following the Watergate scandal, now has a program on Al Jazeera, entitled Frost Over the World.

Gretchen Carlson continues to make Cincinnati — her one-time home in the 1990s — proud of her accomplishments as Fox News morning host. The former WCPO-TV reporter and anchor (and former Miss America) is the latest national media personality to take the brave stand of supporting the little-known and underappreciated holiday of Christmas.

In the latest volley in the escalating cyberwar involving attacks on WikiLeaks and its founder, anonymous hackers have blocked access and disrupted service to Web sites for MasterCard, the Swedish prosecutor's office and the attorney representing two women accusing Assange of crimes

After WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange voluntarily turned himself into British authorities today, he was denied bail and remains in custody until at least Dec. 14, according to The Guardian newspaper in London.

Assange, 39, was told by London Metropolitan police about new charges he faces in connection with two sexual encounters he had in Sweden. "He is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape, all alleged to have been committed in August 2010," the newspaper reported.

Just hours after a Swiss bank froze access today to a legal defense fund established for WikiLeaks provocateur Julian Assange, a group of hackers have shut down the bank's Web site in an escalating "infowar."

A group calling itself Operation Payback took responsibility for the Internet attack on the Swiss bank, PostFinance, via its Twitter account. "We will fire at anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks," the group said in its announcement.

Streetcar opponents allow Sittenfeld to act like a leader in everyone’s face

By all accounts, yesterday’s special council session to
discuss the Cincinnati streetcar was long and contentious, more than 60 streetcar supporters
pleading with an indignant Mayor John Cranley and newly elected council members
still spouting campaign-trail anti-streetcar rhetoric.

After the meeting, Cranley dismissed an offer by major philanthropy organization The Carol
Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation to pay for a study of
streetcar shut-down costs that opponents want to see come in lower than the
city’s estimates before they vote to completely stop the project. Cranley dismissed
the offer because it also came with a note saying that if the streetcar is canceled the foundation will
reconsider its contributions to Music
Hall, the Smale Riverfront Park and other city projects. Cranley would rather make the city pay for the study than negotiate with terrorists respond to threats.

About seven and a half hours into this debacle of American
democracy — which included numerous procedural abnormalities including the
mayor asking Council to discuss and vote on ordinances no one had read yet, an hours-long
delay and a funding appropriation that leaves the cancellation vote safe from
the pro-streetcar-threatened voter referendum (something Cranley railed against
when the city administration kept the parking plan safe from referendum) — Councilman
P.G. Sittenfeld livened things up with something everyone tired of the streetcar
debate can agree is funny: undermining the mayor’s authority by asking fellow
council members to overrule him.

The following video published by UrbanCincy shows Cranley denying Sittenfeld an opportunity to speak. Sittenfeld then asks for a vote to overrule Cranley, which the mayor had to approve, and everyone but Kevin Flynn votes to overrule. (Flynn unfortunately had to vote first, leaving him unable to determine which way the vote was likely to go — a tough position for a rookie politician.) Once David Mann and Amy Murray voted to allow Sittenfeld to speak, the rest of the anti-streetcar faction followed suit, knowing Sittenfeld had the necessary votes to overrule Cranley. Then Sittenfeld spent a few minutes going mayoral on Cincinnati's new mayor.

The Cincinnati Enquirer abruptly changed its tone about the
streetcar project yesterday, writing in an editorial that the city should continue the project and leaving the newspaper on the opposite side of
Mayor-elect John Cranley on the two main issues of the campaign it endorsed just weeks ago.

Fourteen months after publishing an editorial against the
streetcar project, the three-member Enquirer editorial board yesterday spelled
out why it now supports completing the project, suggesting that a main part of
its opposition — and to Roxanne Qualls as mayor — was the
current administration’s inability to “argue effectively for the project” that
Cranley and other conservatives used to take office during an election that saw
extremely low voter turnout.

CityBeat’s German Lopez noted on Twitter the irony of The
Enquirer now supporting both the streetcar and parking plan while the candidate
it endorsed attempts to unravel both — Cranley already stopped the parking
plan. The comment drew a response from Enquirer Editor Carolyn Washburn, who is
on the newspaper’s editorial board along with Publisher Margaret Buchanan and
Editorial Page Editor David Holthaus.

The editorial includes the following paragraph: “In endorsing Cranley, we said
he would ‘have to rein in his dictatorial tendencies and discipline himself to
be diplomatic, respectful and collaborative.’ What we’ve seen so far is a
matter for concern. Hurling insults at professionals like streetcar project manager
John Deatrick isn’t what we need. Deatrick enjoys a good reputation as someone
who has managed The Banks project and the rebuild of Fort Washington Way. He
needs to stay on the streetcar project.”

The
editorial was published the same day City Council put completing the project
into law and Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld announced his decision to support the
project’s completion, which Lopez pointed out leaves Council short of the six
votes required for an emergency clause that would immediately halt the project without leaving it open to referendum.
Without the emergency clause, streetcar supporters could gather the required signatures to put a 5-4 cancellation
vote to referendum, which would force the city to continue working on the
project until voters decide on it in November.

Mayor-elect Cranley will
hold a vote to stop the project on Monday. With Sittenfeld set to vote against halting the project, Cranley will need either newly elected David Mann
or Kevin Flynn to vote in favor of stopping it. Both are on the record as
being against the project but have left room to consider the financial realities
before making their final decisions.

A story by The Enquirer’s
Mark Curnutte yesterday detailed life expectancy disparities among Cincinnati’s
poor neighborhoods, finding a 20 year difference at times between citizens of
predominantly black or urban Appalachian neighborhoods and people of wealthy white neighborhoods like Mount Lookout, Columbia
Tusculum and Hyde Park. The Cincinnati
Health Department will release more statistics Tuesday and a community
discussion on the issue is set for Jan. 10.

"Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which
assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably
succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This
opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and
naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacra­lized
workings of the prevailing economic system. … Meanwhile, the excluded are still
waiting."

Someone divided $1.5 million by 30

Most Cincinnatians don’t view TheCincinnati Enquirer as a beacon of journalistic innovation, but
today’s homepage headline pointing out that streetcar construction is
costing the city an average of $50,000 a day was a reminder of how
interested our Sole Surviving Daily is in drumming up negativity about the project.

Hundreds of streetcar supporters packed the Mercantile
Library last night outlining the several different ways they plan to campaign
to save the project — including various forms of litigation The Enquirer typically enjoys playing up
as potentially costly to taxpayers — a story similar in concept to the
anti-streetcar protests The Enquirer gave attention to leading up to the election.

The Enquirer’s cursory wrap-up of the
event was removed from the cincinnati.com homepage this morning, and it's currently not even listed on the site's News page even though it was published more recently than several stories that are. Left behind on the homepage is a real joke
of analysis: the fact that the $1.5 million monthly construction cost divided
by 30 days in a month amounts to $50,000 per day, assuming workers put in the
same amount of time every day in a month and the city gets billed that way,
which it doesn’t.

The $1.5 million figure has been known for weeks, but $50,000 per day
sounds dramatic enough that concerned taxpayers everywhere can repeat it to other ill-informed people at the water cooler. If these math whizzes wanted to really piss people off they would have broken it all the way down to $34.70 per minute, 24 hours a day. Man, fuck that streetcar!

At least the story’s third paragraph offered a piece of
recent news: Halting construction will still cost the city $500,000 per month because it will be on the hook for workers who
can’t be transferred and costs of rental equipment that will just sit there.
(For Enquirer-esque context: It will
still cost $16,667 per day or $11.57 a minute to temporarily halt the project.)

Also, the note in the headline (“Streetcar, which Cranley
plans to cancel, still costing $50K a day”) reminding everyone that Cranley
plans to cancel the project that is currently costing money seems unnecessary
considering THE ONLY THING ANYONE HAS HEARD ABOUT SINCE THE ELECTION IS THAT
CRANLEY PLANS TO STOP THE STREETCAR. It does nicely nudge readers toward the
interactive forum they can click on and publicly lament how
people who don’t pay taxes have too much control over our city.

(Additional professional advice: Consider changing the
subhed from, “It'll be costly to stop, and costly to go on, but work continues
until Cranley and new council officially stop it” to something that doesn’t
sound like you have no idea what the fuck is going on.)

For context, the following are the streetcar stories
currently presented on the website homepages of local media that have more
talent/integrity than The Enquirer:

CONSERVATIVE MEDIA BONUS: 700WLW even has a relevant piece of
streetcar news, although you have to scroll past a video of Russian kids
wrestling a bear and an article suggesting that Obamacare is the president’s
Katrina (whatever that means): Feds: Use money for streetcar or pay it back.

Court upholds decision that the paper's 2010 statement was made with actual malice

A Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judge has denied the Milford-Miami Advertiser's request to appeal a 2012 ruling that charged the Gannett-owned suburban weekly with defamation and ordered the paper to pay the defamed plaintiff $100,000 in damages.

In an article published in the Advertiser on May 27, 2010 titled "Cop's suspension called best move for city," the paper implicated Miami Township police officer James Young, who years before had been mired in legal trouble for accusations of sexual assault that were eventually disproven, in its article discussing another sex scandal in the area.

According to court documents, in 1997, Young was initially fired from his job after a woman named Marcie Phillips accused Young of forcing her to perform oral sex on him while Young was on duty. An internal investigation revealed that the two had actually been engaged in a relationship prior and that Young had spent time at Phillips' house while on duty.The allegations, however, were entangled in questions about Phillips' character and concern that she could have been lying about the rape because the relationship between the two had recently ended on rocky terms.

When DNA testing on semen found on a rug in the woman's home proved that the DNA didn't match Young's, he was exonerated and reinstated to his position.

The Advertiser article explained that Young had been terminated for sexual harassment, immoral behavior, gross misconduct and neglect in the line of duty and also stated that "Young had sex with a woman while on the job," which formed the basis for Young's defamation suit.

The 2010 article dealt with similar accusations lodged against Milford Police Officer Russell Kenney, who pleaded guilty to charges that he'd been having sex with Milford Mayor Amy Brewer while he was on duty on multiple occasions.

Kenney was suspended from his position for 15 days, but
was later reinstated even though Milford's police chief planned to
recommend his termination to avoid having to use an arbitrator to
dissect the case.

Although the article is attributed to writer Kellie Giest, the lawsuit revealed that the paper's editor at the time, Theresa Herron, inserted the section of the article that went to trial. According to court documents, Herron added the paragraphs about Young to Giest's story because she felt the article needed more context about why the city wanted to avoid arbitration.

According to court documents from the suit Young filed against the Gannett Satellite Information Network, Gannett responded the to initial complaint by acknowledging that the statement was a defamation of character, but that the statement was made without actual malice on the part of Herron. There is a high legal threshold for plaintiffs to establish a defamation claim, which require the plaintiff to prove several elements beyond a reasonable doubt; for public officials, the threshold is even higher because they most prove that the offender acted with actual malice — in this case, knowing the claim about Young was false and printing it anyway — to win a lawsuit.

In its appeal, Gannett argued that Young, as a police officer, did not meet the threshold of a public official required to successfully establish a defamation claim and that Herron's inclusions were based on rational interpretations of documents on the case — even though Young denied having sex with plaintiff Marcie Phillips, he admitted the two had kissed and the arbitrator's report documented one instance in which Young was at Phillips' house while on duty.

In the court's opinion denying Gannett's appeal, Judge John Rogers writes that Herron admitted she had read the arbitrator's report from Young's case, which provided no evidence that Young and Phillips ever actually had sex at all.

"There was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that Herron was well aware that the statement she added to the article was probably false," it reads. "Herron was also reckless in failing to conduct any investigation beyond the records of the original case. She did not seek out Young for comment, nor did she talk to anyone involved in his case."

Numbers down more than 10 percent over the past year

Many of Ohio’s major newspapers, including The Cincinnati Enquirer,
lost thousands of readers in the past year, but some managed to beat
trends and gain in certain categories, according to a circulation audit
from the Alliance for Audited Media.

The audit found The Enquirer’s average daily
circulation, which excludes Saturday and Sunday, down to 117,754 from
132,076 between September 2012 and September 2013. Sunday circulation
fell to 235,515 from 262,876. The numbers represent a 10.8 percent decline in average daily circulation and 10.4 percent on Sundays.

The Akron Beacon Journal and Youngstown Vindicator also saw negative trends, with average daily and Sunday circulation dropping.

Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer lost some of its
Sunday circulation, but comparable statistics weren’t available for
average daily circulation because the newspaper transitioned from daily
delivery to three-times-a-week delivery earlier in the year.

But The Toledo Blade and Dayton Daily News actually increased their average daily and Sunday circulation.

The Columbus Dispatch also upped its average daily circulation, but Sunday circulation fell.

For newspapers, dropping circulation coincides with more readers getting their news from the Internet and alternative
sources over the past few years. The alternatives have cost newspapers around the country
readers and advertising revenue, and many have responded with cutbacks in staff and
overall news coverage.

Other media outlets appear to be taking advantage of the new vacancy. The Business Courierreported on Monday that Cox Media’s Journal-News is increasing its presence in Butler and Warren counties to compete with The Enquirer. The move follows Cox Media’s decision to merge its Hamilton and Middletown newspapers into a single entity that covers both cities and counties.

Yvette Simpson says man quoted in WCPO story harassed her with racist remarks

Councilwoman Yvette Simpson is questioning why WCPO used
a man named Jim Kiefer as a source for a story after he harassed her on social media with racist insults.

WCPO’s Kevin Osborne
quoted Kiefer in a story, identifying him as a supporter for John Cranley’s mayoral
campaign. (Full disclosure: Osborne formerly worked for CityBeat.)

When Simpson saw the story with Kiefer as a source, she says she immediately recognized him as someone who has repeatedly harassed her with racist remarks on Facebook.

Kiefer's Facebook page was publicly viewable prior to Simpson calling him out on Twitter yesterday, but it has since been made private.

On Oct. 20, the day before WCPO's story was published, Kiefer posted a message on his Facebook
wall that said, “For my pick as worst councilperson in cincinnati
(sic).... Evette (sic) getto (sic) Simpson!” Although the post included
various grammatical and spelling errors, Kiefer then attached an image
that said, “No you may not ‘Axe’ me a question. I don't speak Walmart.”

Several of Simpson’s colleagues, including Councilman Chris Seelbach and City
Council candidate Mike Moroski, have come
to Simpson’s defense after she posted the image.

The issue for Simpson is whether a media outlet should be
using Kiefer as a source, considering his images and posts were publicly viewable on Facebook. Simpson says Osborne never responded to
her email asking whether he or WCPO is aware of Kiefer’s history. Osborne is Facebook friends with Kiefer.

CityBeat contacted WCPO News Director Alex Bongiorno by phone and email to ask about WCPO’s policy for vetting and identifying sources, but no response was given prior to the publishing of this story.

WCPO’s story detailed criticisms from Cranley
supporters against opponent Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, who Simpson supports. Specifically, the
story questioned why Qualls allegedly never sought an opinion from the
Ohio Board of Ethics over whether her work as a realtor presents a
potential conflict of interest with her support for the streetcar
project, which could increase property values — and perhaps Qualls’ compensation as a realtor — along its route.

It turns out Qualls had asked for a professional opinion on the ethical issue at least two times before,
but the city solicitor deemed the connection
between Qualls’ work and the streetcar project too indirect and
speculative to present a conflict of interest, according to an email
from City Solicitor John Curp copied to CityBeat and other media outlets.

Kiefer called CityBeat after people on social media discussed CityBeat’s various calls for comment for this story. Kiefer said the images were supposed to be jokes. “You have to have a sense of humor,” he said.

The Cranley campaign says it has and wants nothing to do with Kiefer.

“John (Cranley) wouldn’t know Jim Kiefer if he walked past him in
the street right now. It’s not someone that he’s ever met. It’s not
someone that he’s ever dealt with. It’s not someone that the campaign
has ever dealt with,” says Jay Kincaid, Cranley’s campaign director.
“Whatever his views are don’t reflect those of John.”

Kincaid also points out that Cranley’s record goes against
some of the bigotry perpetuated by Kiefer's posts. While on City Council, Cranley
championed and helped pass an anti-racial profiling ordinance and LGBT
protections in local hate crime laws.

Simpson’s history with Kiefer goes back to at least June,
when Simpson says Kiefer went on a racist tirade against her on Facebook
in the middle of an online discussion over the city’s parking plan. The
discussion has been deleted since then, but Simpson says
Kiefer told her to never return to the West Side of Cincinnati.

This is not the first time Kiefer touted images with bigoted connotations on
his Facebook wall. In one instance, he “liked” an image of President
Barack Obama in tribal regalia. In another, he posted an image of
Barney Frank that mocked the former congressman’s homosexuality.

Media musings from Cincinnati and beyond

• I was at UPI in London during the 1963 March on
Washington. I read about it in London dailies and the Paris
Herald-Tribune. Since then, all kinds of “marches” on Washington have
cheapened the brand. So has the obsessive replaying of snippets from
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as if it were the event. I’m grateful to
news media that went further in recalling the magnitude of the 1963
march and roles played by organizers and other speakers. This was part
of the 1960s that I missed.

• Court rulings allow the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
heir to own and control his “I Have a Dream” speech to the 1963 march.
Anyone wanting to use more than a few words must pay. My first reaction
was “WTF? It was a public event in a public place and a public speech to
the public. That can be ‘owned’? Yup.

• Stenographic reporting of the so-called debate over
whether to bomb Syria back into the Stone Age helps build acceptance for
a new war. Similarly, assertions that Assad’s forces gassed civilians
are repeatedly reported as evidence or proof.

As of this writing, reporters have quoted no top Obama
administration official willing to offer evidence or proof. Instead, as
evidence, we have unverified videos online and interpretations of what
the images show. Reporters don’t tell us who provided death figures or
who provided information that White House is using the claim Sarin gas
was used.

• Meanwhile, the constitutional expectation that only
Congress can declare war has suffered the same fate as the Fourth
Amendment ban on unreasonable seizures and searches; dying if not dead.

Germany and Japan attacked us. Congress responded for the
most recent time: 1942. Russia’s surrogate attacked our dictator across
the 38th Parallel in 1950 and triggered the still-unresolved Korean
police action. LBJ was conned or knowingly lied about reported 1964
attacks on American warships in the Tonkin Gulf and moved us into the
undeclared Vietnam War. Luckily, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait in1990
and started Gulf War I. The CIA’s totally mistaken 2002 “slam dunk”
assurance about Weapons of Mass Destruction was used by Bush to justify
undeclared Gulf War II. After 9/11, Afghans sheltered Osama bin Laden
before our allies in Pakistan sheltered him and that was used to justify
our unfinished and undeclared war against the Taliban in both countries
although the Taliban never attacked us. Let’s not even get into the
invasion of Panama or Grenada or fiasco in Somalia. All that’s missing
in this latest rush to bash a hornets nest is a repeat of the New York
Times sycophantic reporting that Saddam Hussein had and would use
weapons of mass destruction.

• If you want a weapon of mass destruction, how about the
AK-47, the totemic Soviet assault rifle that is ubiquitous on every
continent or the simple machete/panga with which millions have been and
are being murdered and/or mutilated. No chemical, biological or nuclear
weapon has killed so many people.

• When will some national reporter ask, “What’s surgical
about a surgical strike?” Nothing unless we’re comparing it to carpet
bombing a la Germany, Japan, Laos or Vietnam.

Other than assassinating Assad with a drone-launched
guided missile — good enough for Americans in Yemen — any attack on
Syria will create “collateral” damage. They used to be called innocent
victims, sort of like French civilians killed by Allies’ D-Day bombing.

However, it’s no mystery why news media are willing, even
eager to echo this desensitizing insider language. It recalls “RPG,”
“IED,” “smart bombs,” “boots on the ground” and similar military
language embraced by civilian reporters for their civilian audiences.
Except those buzz words weren’t for civilian audiences; it was how
reporters assured military sources that journalists were savvy and
sympathetic listeners.

“Surgical strikes” serves us as badly as reporting
unsupported assertions and assumptions as fact. Accurately reported
bullshit is still bullshit.

• Accurate reporting requires context. Why is gassing
hundreds of Syrian civilians in Damascus worse than shooting and killing
as many or more civilians about in and around Cairo? Why is the killing
and wounding of thousands in Cairo worse than endlessly raping,
wounding, mutilating and killing millions of civilians in the horribly
misnamed Democratic Republic of Congo?

• Our selective condemnation of poison gas recalls the
11th-century papal ban of the cross bow; peasant crossbowmen could kill
armored knights from an unmanly and impersonal distance. That also was
bad for the social order. Welsh bowmen faced no such opprobrium although
their arrows killed far more mounted knights.

Jump ahead almost a millennium. There is debate on what is
a chemical weapon and not all gasses — think tear gas — are poisonous.
Poison gas was used infrequently but without sanction during the past
100 years.

Germans and the British gassed each other during World War
I. Communists were accused of using poison gas during Russian Civil
War. Italians gassed native troops in Ethiopia in the 1930s in years
when colonial powers were suspected/accused of gassing rebellious native
troops. Japanese gassed Chinese during early World War II. Egyptians
gassed Yemeni forces in the 1960s but Americans denied using
toxic/blister gasses in Vietnam and Laos. Iraq deployed lethal gas
against its own people and Iranian forces in the insane Iraq-Iran 1980s
war. Politicians and UN officials fulminate against gassing civilians
but they only remind us how selective agony and journalism can be.

• No less authority than President Obama relegated the
comparative to the dustbin of grammar. His speech at the Lincoln
Memorial last week praised King and other civil rights activists, saying
“Because they marched, America became more free and more fair.” True,
but I’ll bet King would have said, “freer and fairer.”

• Everyone’s lauding David Frost’s evocative interviews
with disgraced Richard Nixon after he resigned the presidency. He died
after a heart attack on Saturday.

My memory of Frost is different: TW3, the original That
Was the Week that Was on BBC TV. It was as irreverent as posh Brits from
Oxbridge could be and Frost was a central figure in its creation in
1962 and weekly broadcasts until it was cancelled to avoid criticism as
the 1964 general election neared. Two skits stand out in my memory, in
part because my Saturday night duties at UPI included watching and
filing a story on anything newsworthy that TW3 did/said.

The first showed an otherwise empty set with seemingly
naked Millicent Martin, then young and drop-dead lovely, astride and
leaning over the back of a curvy, modern Arne Jacobsen chair. It was the
same pose call girl Christine Keeler used when photographed during the
scandal over her affair with government minister John Profumo. You can
see the original Keeler image at www.vam.ac.uk. Martin
resembled Keeler just as Tina Fey looked like Sarah Palin. Martin
looked straight at the camera and said something like, “John told me I
was sitting on a fortune.” That was it. Perfect lampoon but there was no
way to use that skit on UPI’s wire.

The second memorable skit followed the apparent TW3 and
BBC late night sign-off. A De Gaulle look alike, right down the uniform
and kepi on his head, addressed the Brits contemptuously over some
strategic or diplomatic blunder. Then the broadcast ended. That skit
was newsworthy. BBC said its switchboard operators — remember, this was
the early 1960s — were overwhelmed. Seemed the perfect jab at the
Establishment by its children fooled a lot of Brits; they thought BBC
really had broadcast a De Gaulle speech.

• On a celebratory note, authorities dropped charges
against Tim Funk, religion reporter for the Charlotte Observer, who
arrested while he interviewed “Moral Monday” demonstrators at the
Statehouse in Raleigh, NC. He was charged with second-degree trespass
and failure to disperse.

Tim’s a Northern Kentuckian and among the ablest of
decades of my undergraduate students. After the local prosecutor came to
his senses, Tim told the AP, “It was clear to everyone there that I was
a news reporter just doing my job interviewing Charlotte-area clergy
about how they felt about being arrested. The reporter’s job is to be
the eyes and ears of the public who can’t be present at important public
events like this protest. That’s all I was doing.”

When his June 10 arrest was reported, at least one
respondent noted that Tim was among the first detained, stopping him
from seeing how police handled demonstrators.

His editor, Rick Thames, told AP, “This is clearly the
right result, and we congratulate the district attorney for making the
right decision. Tim Funk was working as a journalist inside the most
obvious public building in our state. The videotape of Tim’s arrest
demonstrates clearly that his only purpose in being there was to provide
our readers a vivid firsthand account. He was clearly not obstructing
the police. It’s hard to understand why he was arrested in the first
place.”

• Cincinnati taxpayers need to know more about competing —
and inescapably costly — plans to overcome years of city council
shortchanging the city pension fund. The news isn’t good. As the
Enquirer’s James Pilcher put it Sunday, “if every man,woman and child
living in the city of Cincinnati contributed $2,000 apiece, it still
wouldn’t be enough to fill the plan’s current $870 million gap.”

There’s a timeline with his explanatory story that screams
for elaboration: What, if any, roles did mayoral candidates Roxanne
Qualls and John Cranley play in council decisions to deepen the pension
debt?

And I howled at the quote from state auditor Dave Yost: “ .
. . the city is in a fork in the road . . . And I’m concerned
Cincinnati is not doing enough to avoid going down that fork in the
road.”

Don’t try this at home. Sort of like standing with a foot
on each side of a barbed wire fence. Reminds me of a friend who’d look
right, point left and say, “Go this way.”

Maybe with Yost’s sense of direction, Cincinnati should consider the road not taken.

Parent company Gannett lays off 400-plus around nation

Although it’s moving staff out of its offices in Kentucky, The Cincinnati Enquirer intends to continue publishing a daily Kentucky edition with unique content for Northern Kentucky.

Editor Steve Wilson was among those laid off from The Kentucky Enquirer yesterday. He will remain at the newspaper for four weeks, along with several colleagues who were also laid off.

Wilson told CityBeat that The Enquirer isn’t backing away from its commitment to northern Kentucky, but acknowledges problems posed by the layoffs.

“Clearly, all things being equal, you want to have
reporters based in the area they’re covering. That just makes sense.
Everybody would agree with that,” Wilson says. “But in this case, they
apparently had their reasons that made sense to them.”

Wilson won’t speculate on the reasons, but he cites cost
concerns as an ongoing problem. “Gannett, like most companies, is very
bottom-line-driven, and they had to do something to reduce expenses,” he
says, pointing to the continuing trend of downsizing in the news industry.

Following the demise of The Cincinnati Post in 2007, The Cincinnati Enquirer
and its Kentucky edition made strides to appeal to northern Kentucky
readers. One example: The newspaper stopped referring to the region as
“Greater Cincinnati,” instead adopting “Greater Cincinnati and northern
Kentucky” — a lede-unfriendly moniker that was meant to show The Enquirer was serious about reaching out.

But a source close to The Enquirer who asked to remain anonymous questioned the success of those efforts, given yesterday’s layoffs.

Gannett Blog claims 23 people were laid off at Enquirer
offices, but it’s difficult to confirm the report because of Gannett’s
secrecy with staffing issues. More than 400 people lost their jobs at
Gannett newspapers around the nation, according to the blog.

Based on information gathered so far, the local layoffs span through the Cincinnati and Kentucky versions of The Enquirer, Community Press and Community Recorder.

A source close to the situationtold CityBeat
that eight reporters, two editors and one photographer are moving from
the Kentucky offices to downtown Cincinnati, with the
remaining Kentucky staff members laid off. Staff members were also moved from the newspaper’s West Chester
office, which covered Butler and Warren counties.

Original reports claimed the Kentucky and West Chester offices were closing, but they will apparently remain open for reporters in a limited capacity.

The source gave the names of five people who were laid
off: Wilson; Bill Cieslewicz, a mid-level editor; Jackie Demaline,
theatre critic and arts writer; Paul McKibben, breaking news reporter;
and Ealer Wadlington, listing coordinator.

When asked about the layoffs, Gannett spokesperson Jeremy Gaines told journalism industry blogger Jim Romenesko, “Some USCP (U.S. Community Publishing) sites are making cuts to align their business plans with local market conditions.”

The nationwide layoffs come a couple weeks after Gannett CEO Gracia Martore proudly claimed on July 22, “We are accelerating our transformation into the ‘New Gannett’ every day.”

Ex-Councilman John Cranley is outraising
Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls in the mayoral race by $124,000, but the
history and research of money in politics suggest the lead might not
matter much, if at all. Mayor Mark Mallory was outspent more than
three-to-one in the 2005 mayoral race by David Pepper, but Mallory won
the vote 52-48 percent. Political scientists argue fundraising and
campaigns generally have a marginal impact, while economic growth, the
direction of the city, state and country, incumbency or successorship,
name likability and recognition, and political affiliation have much
bigger effects. [Correction: This originally said $134,000 when the correct number is $124,000.]

The board that manages Cincinnati employees’ struggling pension system won’t make a recommendation to City Council Monday,
as originally planned, because it can’t decide how much taxpayers and
employees should suffer to help fix the $862 million unfunded liability.
Board members couldn’t agree on the proper balance between benefit
cuts and increased funding from the city. Credit rating agency Moody’s
on July 15 downgraded Cincinnati’s bond rating
from Aa1 to Aa2 and revised the bonds’ outlook to “negative.” Moody’s
stated one of the biggest causes of concern for Cincinnati’s debt
outlook is its pension fund.

There were massive layoffs at The Cincinnati Enquirer
and its parent company Gannett yesterday, including the reported
closing of the newspaper’s Kentucky office. As of the latest update from
Gannett Blog,
more than 200 people were laid off nationwide and 11 lost their jobs at
the Cincinnati offices. The news comes just two weeks after Gannett CEO
Gracia Martore proudly claimed on July 22, “We are accelerating our transformation into the ‘New Gannett’ every day.”

A few dozen residents organized by a conservative group asked the Greater Cincinnati Port Authority
to kill Cincinnati’s parking lease at a meeting Thursday. The Port is
taking control over Cincinnati’s parking meters, lots and garages as
part of a controversial deal that will net the city $92 million up front
and $3 million or more a year afterward. CityBeat covered the lease in further detail here.

While the Port Authority meeting apparently warranted live
tweeting and various articles from several outlets, other local media outlets never covered a streetcar social that involved roughly 200 supporters of the Cincinnati streetcar and Mayor Mallory.

State officials claim average costs for health insurance
will soar by 41 percent for Ohioans who buy coverage online under
Obamacare, but experts say the state’s claims are misleading.
“These are sticker prices, and very few people will pay these prices,”
said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family
Foundation. “Many will qualify for subsidies.” The Republican officials
touting the claims of higher costs, including Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, have opposed
Obamacare from the start.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald is once again asking for an ethics probe
of Gov. John Kasich and JobsOhio, the privatized development
agency established by Republicans to replace the Ohio Department of
Development. Republicans claim JobsOhio is creating thousands of job in
the state, but Democrats argue the agency’s secretive nature makes it
difficult to verify whether taxpayer dollars are being effectively used.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine yesterday announced a
statewide Internet cafe investigation spanning to an establishment in
Middletown. “We are still in the beginning stages of what we expect to
be a very lengthy investigation,” DeWine said in a statement. “While it
is too early in the investigation to go into specifics, we do believe
the alleged criminal activity at these locations goes beyond illegal
gambling.” Earlier in the year, Gov. John Kasich and the state
legislature effectively banned Internet cafes, which they claimed were
hubs for online gambling and illegal activity.

The Ohio crime lab received about 3,300 untested rape kits
from law enforcement around the state and found nearly 400 DNA matches
after testing more than 1,300 of the kits. DeWine says the extensive tests are
helping solve sexual assault crimes.

Just one day after announcing he’s quitting the mayoral race, Libertarian Jim Berns is asking to rejoin. Berns withdrew from the race
Wednesday in protest of the mayoral primary election and debate
schedule. In a statement, he said he had changed his mind because
staying in the race supposedly allows him to shed light on important issues.

Jim Romenesko reported on his journalism industry blog that there were layoffs at The Kentucky Enquirer, the Kentucky edition of the local newspaper. One commenter on Gannett Blog echoed the report, saying the Kentucky offices had been closed down and moved to Cincinnati.

Gannett Blog reports 11 layoffs at Cincinnati branches, including the Community Press and Community Recorder. That coincides with more than 150 layoffs at newspapers around the country, according to the blog.

Because of Gannett’s secrecy with staffing issues, it’s difficult to confirm any specific report. No names have been provided yet.

CityBeat was tipped off about the layoffs earlier in the day by a source close to The Enquirer.

A spokesperson wasn’t available for questions about the layoffs, but Jeremy Gaines, vice president of communications at Gannett, told Romenesko, “Some USCP (U.S. Community
Publishing) sites are making cuts to align their business plans with
local market conditions.”

Gannett CEO Gracia Martore proudly claimed on July 22, “We are accelerating our transformation into the ‘New Gannett’ every day.”